Week 30: Flying to Orlando

On Monday 1/18/10, Mommy and Lauren set out on a new adventure: Flying together! Aunt Mary and Uncle Mark are going to have their baby girls in 2 weeks and I could not stand the thought of not being able to help Mary with last minute errands. By the time the trip was over, however, I'm not sure how helpful I was to her but was glad that we made the trip. There are lots of details of this trip that I want to document so that, one day, I'll laugh and wonder how and why I did what I managed to do. Synopsis: lost I-Phone, presumed lost credit card, and Lauren's first fever.

We left from Panama City at 10:30am and flew to Atlanta for our 50 minute layover. I was very curious as to how Lauren would do with take-off and landing but this ended up being the least of my worries. If you are like me, I have never really wanted to be the one to sit by "the baby on the plane", but I don't think I ever really made it known outwardly. We boarded the plane and found our seat. I sat Lauren in my seat so that I could get the diaper bag under the seat in front of us. While doing so, I held up the line behind me for MAYBE 10 seconds. I turned around to get my bearings (because we were on a small plane) and the lady behind me said "Are you going to let me in or not? I guess I'm with you." Oh! The nerve!! She didn't even know me or my sweet baby! She didn't say a single word to us the entire flight to ATL. Lauren, by the way, did really well with her ears. I made sure to nurse her during take-off and she slept until landing. We got off the plane, waited for the umbrella stroller and started to our next gate (traveled from T to A). I knew that I wouldn't have time to grab a bite to eat for myself but that Lauren needed to have her jar food for lunch, so we strolled quickly and took the tram. We got to A-23 and found out that our gate had been changed to T-19...exactly where we had just come from!! So, I gave the Delta gentleman a panicked look (remember, I had less than 50 minutes) and wheeled LEB around. Now with a crying baby, I went back to the T terminal just in time to park her, let her eat her 2 jars and get ready to board the next plane. No time for diaper change. But that's okay, it's only another hour, right? This plane was much larger and we had an empty seat next to us (The picture above is Lauren stretching out in the seat). An older gentleman sat 2 seats away and was very kind, talked to Lauren and me and told me about his children and grandchildren. Again, no problem with take-off, but things started to go downhill from here. Big dirty diaper came within 10 minutes of leaving, the mommy tried to strategically hold her so that the poop didn't do, as the Bongiorno's call it, a "back scratcher" after she very seriously considered changing the smelly diaper in the empty seat next to us, Lauren never slept and was fidgety the entire time, old man became creepy-nice offering to hold Lauren while the plane was unloading/hold my diaper bag as I tried to stand up/tried to hurry me along as I am trying to carefully hold Lauren by her trunk so I don't push all the poop out of her diaper in 4 directions...all to say that I didn't do the classic "look back in the seat to check that I had everything" maneuver and left my I-Phone sitting right there on the seat. I realized this immediately after I exited the bridge and asked to go back on. Denied by Delta. Delta man went to look for it himself but couldn't find it and said that cleaning crew had already come. What am I going to do? I kept asking myself over and over. I went to the bathroom, because by now I've forgotten the poop and it came out one leg and up the back, changed her diaper, started crying as Lauren is now crying, pulled it together, asked a stranger if I could borrow her phone to call Eric. Mary is waiting for me somewhere in the airport but I never memorize people's numbers anymore BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL IN MY PHONE WHICH HAS NOW BEEN LOST and I can't call her. We found each other, went to Delta lost and found to report my missing phone only to hear the lady say, "Oh, an I-Phone? Yeah, you may not get that back." As we were driving out of airport parking I had, unbeknowest to me, pulled out my credit card to pay for Mary's parking fee. But then I went to grab it and couldn't find it. I tried to hold it together, but here came the tears again. (I found it right where I had put it...in a small pocket of my small mommy purse just 2 minutes earlier) At this point, I know that 35-week pregnant with twins Mary must have thought "what in the world is going on?!?!?!"

All the stars aligned...changed terminal+hungry baby+Miralax in prune juice+poop+weird nice old man+lost cell phone+presumed lost credit card=crazy post-maternity mommy!!

After I recovered from a day of traveling :-) Lauren stayed with Ms. Betsy while I went with Mary to Winnie Palmer for her last ultrasound. I was so happy to be able to witness these little girls' sweetness before they were born. We found out that they are gaining weight very well (4-8 and 4-10), Baby B has hair, they are cheek to cheek :-), and that everything is going along very healthy and as planned.

We then drove to Saratoga Springs Spa for a day of massages and mani-pedi's! Thank you, Betsy, for letting me have a day with Mary. She is going to be so lucky to have you help care for her girls.

Later that night, just us 3 (I mean 5) girls went to Amura's for some sushi. Here is Lauren paying close attention to mommy eating edemamme. I took the soy beans out and she loved sucking on the pod.
Tuesday night I put Lauren to bed (in Ashlynn's crib) without any worries. Wednesday morning when I picked her up I noticed that she felt really warm. Even though I was chilly, I didn't think anything of it except that maybe her pj's had kept her really warm (silly ameteur mommy...I've always said that "I don't do babies" when it comes to medicine). The more the morning went on, she got more and more fussy and at lunch at Colibri's Mexican Restaurant she vomited (she never does this) which made poor Mary nauseous as she was trying to enjoy her queso cheese dip. She then laid her head on my shoulder and fell asleep (which NEVER happens). I had used a pediatrician in Baldwin Park during one of our previous trips and decided to just walk in with her. She had a fever of 100.7 but no signs of infection. Either this was the beginning of a viral process or teething. I was thankful Dr. Summers saw us and we went home to sit and chill for the rest of the day. See, I told you, I was of NO help to Mary during these few days.

On Thursday, it was time to say goodbye to Aunt Mary and her belly, get back on the plane with disgruntled passengers sitting next to a baby who received 5 doses of Tylenol within 24 hours and who is now developing a slight rash on her face and torso and make an appointment with our pediatrician in PC for Friday.

Leaving Mary was much easier than it usually is because we will be seeing her in 7 days when we return with Eric for the big D-Day.

Playing at the gate at MCO.

" Mommy, I love traveling with you. You look really funny when your face turns red and you start breathing hard when you talk to the Delta people."